


Out Spot Out!

by handschuhmaus



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Crack, Anakin being melodramatic, BLOOD ORANGES!, Fluff and Crack, Friendship, Gen, Jedi jumping to ridiculous conclusions, Obi-Wan is red-handed (from beets actually), Palpatine/marmalade, Pomegranates, Sith cooking, Yoda wants fruitcake but this desire is baseless, best cooking pals, citrus mania, communal kitchen, imagined gore, making marmalade, misperceptions, not actually a romantic situation Mace, not taking the Sith seriously, petty fruit theft, silliness, unrealistic blood stains, yogurt covered Yoda
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-10
Updated: 2014-06-10
Packaged: 2018-02-03 14:13:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1747505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/handschuhmaus/pseuds/handschuhmaus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>This is a silly fic I wrote back in January when it was actually citrus season. The description given it at the time:</em>
</p><p>Palpatine's normal supplier of his seasonal vice isn't coughing up the good goods. So he opts to muscle in on Obi-Wan's fondness for the same stuff. Padme stains her gown by incompetent knife work in the same room, and Anakin surveys the carnage in disbelief. Then Yoda wants fruitcake. AU, somewhat OOC, and crack-y.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Out Spot Out!

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Pranks](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/53735) by Smenzer. 



> Be forewarned that this fic contains misperceptions of food stains as gore, if there's any possibility that vague descriptions of that proceeding from the fertile imagination of Anakin Skywalker could cause you problems.
> 
> It also contains misperceptions of cooking interactions as romantic overtones, which the people involved will choose to deny although I suppose if you were so inclined you could view it as their being blind to their feelings. (Personally my headcanon is both members of the major relationship as aro-aces, and Obi-Wan as kind of nonamorous... so I don't.) 
> 
> And misperceptions of non-cake related cooking as the construction of fruitcake. All three of which are cause for the Jedi Council's concern, apparently. Although Yoda's hardly _upset_ about the fruitcake.

It was a horrifying scene! There was blood spattered all over the kitchen, and both his Master and the Chancellor held knives with which they were bringing on new spurts of crimson. Worse, Padme was sitting at one of the prep tables, blood dripping down her face and all over her gown, and chewing something. Then Palpatine stirred a pot into which he dropped some more of the bloodstained pieces and Obi-Wan fed a knobby white thing into a food prep unit. There must have been a massacre and Obi-Wan was trying to get rid of the evidence like how serial killers did with demolition chippers in horror holovids. And Padme was clearly drinking the blood!

"Ouch!" Obi-Wan exclaimed. Anakin fainted.

"What happened?" Padme asked in concern.

"I got it in my eye. Ow." the Jedi snatched a piece and stuffed it in his mouth, while gingerly patting his eye with his other hand. 

"You're such a wimp, Master Kenobi." the Senator teased him.

"And so disorganized," scolded Palpatine, who kept losing his grip on the pips he was trying to wrap in a piece of cloth.

"It hurts! So there." Obi-Wan said peevishly. "Maybe it would help if you cleaned your hands first, Chancellor."

Padme rose from the table "You know, I'm finished with my snack. I think I'm going to go home and see if I can find any information about removing these stains from my nightgown."

"I told you you should have used some water, Padme," Palpatine recommended tenderly.

"And you two are getting it awfully hot in here." 

"Yes, I know," replied the Jedi, wiping his hands on a towel. "But it's the cold season."

The young woman shook her head at their antics and continued out. Obi-Wan dumped the contents of the food prep unit's bowl onto a clean cutting board. Palpatine searched frantically for the kitchen twine.

As Padme passed through the doorway, she spotted Anakin lying on the ground. "Ani, are you all right?" 

The young Jedi trainee blinked open his eyes, saw the girl he was in love with covered in magenta stains, and scrambled to his feet to run off as fast as he could towards the Jedi Council Hall.

"I wonder what's wrong with him," the Naboo senator pondered, glancing back into the kitchen. The Jedi was offering the Chancellor some of what was on the plate, and the politician's face had taken on an expression of disgust. Shrugging, she continued on her way. 

"Eurgh! I don't like licorice," Palpatine explained, trying to finish the mouthful as fast as he could so he wouldn't have the taste linger long. Suddenly his face contorted even more and he removed something from his mouth as discreetly as he could. "Kenobi, did you pit these olives?" 

The Jedi, to his credit, looked abashed. "I thought they were pre-pitted. Must have gotten confused."

Just then the timer went off on one of the ovens, and Obi-Wan rushed over to pull out his three baking trays. When he'd set them aside to cool and come back to the other side of the kitchen, they found themselves reaching into the same container of dates. 

About this time, Master Mace Windu carefully peered into the kitchen. Padawan Skywalker had rushed past him, exclaiming about some sort of event in this kitchen. Unfortunately Mace had just returned from his eye exam (he would need reading glasses) and his eyes were still dilated and obscured behind dark protective flimsiplast spectacles so he couldn't see very well. But he could still hear.

"Would you like a date?" Obi-Wan inquired, half obligingly, half teasingly, tilting the container of dates obligingly to his fellow conspirator.

Though Mace couldn't see it, Palpatine palmed several of the sweet morsels of fruit and popped one into his mouth before Obi-Wan took his turn at the dates. 

Out of friendliness and/or in return for the date courtesy, the Chancellor set a mug of the tea they both liked in front of the Jedi. "Some sugar?" he asked, adding a pinch to his own mug. 

Obi-Wan declined, but Mace couldn't tell what was happening from the doorway. The Jedi then sat down to eat his salad, while Palpatine returned to his vigil over the stovetop. Suddenly the relative peace was interrupted as Obi-Wan jumped to his feet and rushed over to the stove. Knowing of the danger of boiling syrup, he was attempting to extricate Palpatine's sleeve from the hot pot's handle where it had gotten caught as the Chancellor looked urgently for the spoon he thought had fallen on the floor. Aware of the Jedi's presence beside him, Palpatine looked up at the stovetop again and found the spoon he sought right under his nose (figuratively speaking). He picked up the stirring utensil only to realize it had been laid in a small puddle of something viscous and as it separated there was a sucking noise. In dis-coordination, they bumped heads as Palpatine straightened again and Kenobi swiveled the pot handle away.

Mace, as the story has emphasized, currently had very blurry vision, and could only make out Kenobi grabbing the chancellor and their heads touching. And to Windu, who was fairly inexperienced with kisses, the noise of breaking the spoon's suction sounded something like a very sloppy one. Jumping to conclusions and nearly tripping over his own feet as he turned, he headed after Skywalker to the Jedi Council Chamber. Something was going on between Kenobi and Palpatine!

* * *

They had nearly come to blows when they originally entered the kitchen. Blood oranges were perhaps the Chancellor's favorite winter fruit but the produce importer he usually relied on had sent him samples that were sour and distasteful this season. After a fruitless attempt to discover if any better quality ones were available, he happened upon a worker ferrying a distinctly marked crate, on which he was able to read the address "Obi-Wan Kenobi, Jedi Temple." 

Determined, but certain that his favorite winter fruit was so scarce this year he'd be able to secure it by neither love nor money, only by grabbing it in his own hands, he showed up the next morning in a large Temple kitchen expressly for the use of any Jedi that needed extra space for a cooking project. He was followed, at a distance as she chatted with various people, by the senator from his home planet with whom through miscommunication he'd unintentionally made an early morning appointment. 

The crate of fruit had arrived before he did, but he'd arrived before Kenobi, so he sat to work snatching up some of the delectable blood oranges. Obi-Wan entered with an armload of crates of fruit, and a cloth sack full of produce, and stared at him in shock. 

"What in the Force are you doing?" the Jedi demanded in befuddlement, seeing one of the most respected politicians on the planet kneeling and rummaging through the first crate of blood oranges he'd unloaded. 

"Um," when confronted by Kenobi, he wasn't sure at all what he'd been thinking to do this. "I haven't been able to find any other good blood oranges this year." 

"Oh." Kenobi seemed unsure how to reply. "Well, actually I ended up with too many this year anyway. I thought they were sold by weight units of some sort or another or quantity instead of crates, but the other number actually referred to the crate dimensions. So you've given me a way to get rid of some of my unexpected twenty-seven crates of fruit."

At that the Chancellor was so startled he looked up at the Jedi with a broad grin and dropped the oranges he'd had in his arms back into the crate. "You got twenty-seven crates of blood oranges?"

"No, actually I just got nine of blood oranges. There's about forty in each crate though, and I could never manage to eat 360 oranges before they go bad. There's also three crates of navel oranges, three crates of tangerines, three crates of Cara Caras, five crates of grapefruit, two of lemons, and one each of limes and yuzu. Part of those are due to be distributed to other Jedi in the Temple, but I had the same problem with ordering the other fruits, and there's more than I expected to have." the Jedi set the two crates (clearly stamped "MORO BLOOD ORANGES") he was carrying on a prep counter and the bag of produce beside them. "But I have to carry them all in here because the pallet won't fit through the kitchen door and it's blocking the hall. At least it all means they were bargain priced compared to what I thought I was paying." 

To his own astonishment, Palpatine found himself offering to help, which meant the task was reduced to eight trips. After some negotiation, each of them claimed three crates of the blood oranges, and half of one each of the navel oranges (which were huge) and the tangerines. Kenobi was concerned about divesting himself of the rest of the Cara Caras when he refused to take more than 45 of the slightly larger pink oranges, so the Chancellor agreed to take half a crate of those. He also accepted a crate of grapefruit because he knew several residents of the Senatorial building who would enjoy some, and a small assortments of lemons, limes, and yuzus. 

After their division and forming a pile the Jedi knew others in the Temple would accept, Obi-Wan was still left with three crates of blood oranges and a crate of Cara Caras. Apparently putting aside this issue for later, he brought up the fact that they should really try to preserve some of their beloved Moros for later, given they each had roughly ten dozen. The Chancellor suggested a crimson marmalade, and Kenobi orange jelly and orange curd, but they agreed to attempt all three ideas and start the labor-intensive marmalade first. This was the work Anakin had found them engaged in when he'd peeked in on his Master.

The red splatter, however, was not all from the oranges. When Padme Amidala showed up for her appointment with the chancellor--even though said appointment was only supposed to be a discussion of when they could meet to review their staff travel schedule as the only current politians from Naboo on Coruscant--she brought a whole pomegranate for a snack, and said fruit was a snack either a kitchen droid or one of the handmaidens usually extracted. The red juice splattered everywhere as she tried to dissect it. It was only fortunate that they chanced to meet in a kitchen. 

The senator refused Kenobi's offer of his surplus citrus fruits, however, confessing that she didn't really like any of them.

* * *

As Mace ran down the hallway, both Obi-Wan and Palpatine could hear his footsteps, but neither saw anyone when they glanced out into the hallway. "Sorry about that," the Jedi apologized. "I was afraid you'd get burnt if the pot of hot syrup overturned."

"It's not syrup yet, but thank you for your concern, Master Kenobi." the politician responded cordially.

"Now I'll just get around to unwrapping my beets." Obi-Wan noted, heading for his baking trays and gingerly beginning to pull open the foil. He seemed to have forgotten his salad.

But before Obi-Wan could unwrap any more beets, yet another Jedi noticed the events in the kitchen and entered, unaware that his colleagues gathered in the Council room were waiting for his arrival. 

"Making fruitcake you are, Knight Kenobi?" Yoda asked. "Why working with Chancellor Palpatine you are, I know not. Desire fruitcake, I do; save me a piece you should."

"What?" Palpatine hadn't noticed Yoda's entrance until he started speaking, being too focused on scanning the recipe to figure out what to do with his packet of orange pips. Though slightly confused by the subject of Yoda's words, Obi-Wan had peeled the first beet and was beginning to chop it. 

Yoda stood on tip toe to peer at the counter contents, which, the counters being adjusted as they were to humanoids, were above his eye level. He tried to pick up a stray olive from Kenobi's salad for examination, but his hand hit the dirtied spoon Palpatine had discarded, flipping it up and into an open cup of yogurt someone had abandoned at the back of the counter. The yogurt was thin enough to splatter, coating the small alien's forehead and large ears in spots of cultured dairy. Unperturbed, he abandoned the counter and grabbed a towel with which to clean his head. 

Still calm, the small green Jedi Master continued, "Come to the Council Room you should, notice a disturbance there in the Force I do. Both of you come, fruitcake bring to me later." He insistently pulled on Palpatine's robe.

Responding to this sudden urgency, Palpatine quickly moved the pot off the burner, as Obi-Wan raised his arm to wipe away some stray yogurt on his forehead and forgot he was still holding a chunk of beet, which he lost hold of and dropped into his robe sleeve.

"Very well, Yoda," Kenobi acquiesced, wiping his hands on a cranberry colored towel so as not to leave magenta stains anywhere.

The odd procession walked down the hall to the Council room, in which they found a chaotic scene. It suddenly quieted at their arrival.

Kit Fisto stared at Obi-Wan's hands and exclaimed, "You're red-handed, Kenobi! We caught you red-handed!" 

The owner of the beet-pink hands had no ready reply.

"Master Yoda," Shaak Ti greeted.

"What do you mean red-handed? He's not going to just walk in here and confess!" Master Windu retorted angrily, his dark eye-shield askew. 

"Master, what have you done?" Anakin asked him in a panicked voice.

Obi-Wan tried to reassure him "Padawan, I've just been chopping beets."

"With Palpatine!" Mace accused, apparently not noticing or choosing to notice the Chancellor's presence.

"What about the blood spatters all over the kitchen?" Ki-Adi Mundi demanded.

"I heard you exclaim in pain, Master Obi-Wan. Did you hurt yourself when you were grinding up the bones?"

"Bones?" Kenobi repeated, dumbfounded. For once, Anakin Skywalker was relatively peaceful in the center of chaos, though he was still agitated over what he'd perceived as a scene of horrible carnage. The rest of the Jedi in the council room were in various stages of horrified astonishment or irritation, depending on whether they'd chosen to believe Anakin's tale of a blood spattered kitchen, or Windu's allegations regarding a budding romance between Obi-Wan and Palpatine.

"Baking a fruitcake, they were," Yoda insisted serenely.

"He's having an affair with a politician!" Mace alleged once more.

The Chancellor was not sure at all what to think, and was for the moment having trouble making sense of the admittedly confusing charges being made against himself and Kenobi, let alone Yoda's bizarre fixation on fruitcake. 

"What?!" Obi-Wan exclaimed at this plain statement of Mace's misinterpretation. "We were making marmalade. Not... having an affair."

Master Yaddle, a teacher of younglings who was of the same people as Yoda, made her way to the front of the crowd. "Master Kenobi, your padawan says there is blood all over the kitchen where he found you," she addressed him calmly.

"And I saw you putting a bone in the food prep unit." Anakin confessed quietly.

"What--no! That was some fennel. I was making a salad, Anakin."

Palpatine composed himself and prepared a statement about this, "I suppose it is possible the boy took the spatters of red juice for blood. Now that I think on it, Senator Amidala's pomegranate did stain her outfit and many of the walls."

"Why splatters of red juice were there?" Yoda asked. "Red juice Solstice fruitcake does not require."

"No, this idea about cake is wrong," Kenobi corrected, "There was no cake being made. I put in some beets and other vegetables to roast, baked some bread, made myself a mid-morning salad, and helped Chancellor Palpatine with some blood orange marmalade."

"Blood!?!" Mundi exclaimed. 

"Blood /orange/." emphasized Palpatine.

"Didn't you hurt yourself, Master Obi-Wan? I heard you exclaim in pain." Anakin asked, still having yet to resolve this issue.

Obi-Wan thought about this for a moment, and then remembered, "Oh, I squirted myself in the eye with the orange I was cutting up. It hurt, padawan, but I am not injured." 

"What about the date you offered the Chancellor?" Mace seemed certain he was going to get somewhere with this. Fortunately in the chaos he'd forgotten about the kissy noise that had sealed his suspicions. 

"Is there something wrong with me offering him fruit? While he agreed to reimburse me for the excess citrus fruits he relieved me of, I didn't think a snack needed to be a point of contention, especially since he was helping me in the kitchen."

"Fruit?" Master Windu repeated slowly.

Luckily this did not bring another statement about fruitcake from Yoda, even though Obi-Wan could practically hear the Jedi Master insisting "Fruitcake you were making! A slice you will bring me!"

"Yes, fruit. We ate some dried dates." Palpatine explained, by now nearly amused by the confused accusations.

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, it presently ends there. Should it? Possibly not.


End file.
